We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Little. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary below.
Mary, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
As a visual artist, I do make a living from selling my work. And it feels amazing to be able to say that. A little over half the studio revenue is generated through working with interior designers and art advisors. The other half is from individual collectors who, when they email, will inevitably write, “I’ve been following you for a few years and love your work. I’m now ready to buy.”
My year has seasons. Twice a year I’ll make a series of works. I put each new series on my website. I share the work with my ever-growing audience though photography and videos on social media and emails. I don’t like to write, but it’s a critical in bringing my audience along on my journey. A few years ago, I took the courage to break the traditional mold within the art world and posted the prices of my works on my website. My clients love the transparency.
When a work ships beyond LA I like to make a short video demonstrating how it should be hung and arranged so everything is as it should be when installed in its new home.
Mary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Way back, I studied furniture design; first in Belfast, where I grew up, then at the Royal College of Art, in London. I have always taken an experimental and sculptural approach to my work. I focused on seating which has an architectural and sociological foundation, specifically upholstery. And beyond that, I experimented with transforming fabric into sculptural forms. While working in London, several European museums (Vitra Design Museum, Basel; V&A museum, London; Musée des arts Décoratifs, Paris) acquired my work for their permanent collections. While American collectors from the east coast became my biggest supporters. They encouraged me to move to the US. First to the Bay Area, to teach design at California College of the Arts, (CCA), then to the east coast. In 2014 I returned to California, only this time to Los Angeles. I wanted to find and work with young collectors and be back in the hard working but relaxed culture of California. I was also looking for something. I didn’t know what, but it turned out to be a new way of working.
During the first six months of living in L.A. I carried out a large commission from a collector in Washington D.C. While working on that, I took time to learn about design and contemporary art galleries, and how interior designers worked in LA. Two new friends, with experience in the business, advised me to move away from design, and focus on the sculptural aspects of my work. I was very excited by that.
I realized that by removing my preoccupation with the functional and concentrating my focus to the purely sculptural I’d have a new vein to explore. I continued to use my craft skills of pattern making, cutting and sewing but shifted form exotic fabrics to the most basic off-white canvas. I began to explore how light, shadow and gravity can interplay with one another on the canvas.
I’m told these can have an emotional resonance with many who see the work. I watch their reactions feeling a mix of pleasure, confusion, and wonder.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I love to keep learning and for me the most exciting way to do that, and to make new friends along the way, is to take online courses. Over the last 15 years I’ve taken courses on, for example, mindset, copywriting, and my favorite; how to structure an art studio as a business. One critical lesson I learned at the beginning was that I can’t control what others do, I can only control my own actions. I also learned that selling online happens most effectively by consistently putting work out and telling it’s story. Over a long period, you build a presence. Expect no feedback. Eventually you’ll gain interest and inquiries.
I do this so that my name will be front of mind when my collectors, new and old, are ready to buy. No one buys when I am ready to sell, they buy when they are ready to buy.
Your studio is the center of your creativity, but it is also your business.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The common belief is that “if you do good work people will find you.”
I fell for that for way too long. It’s never been true. But now, in a digital era with so many being entrepreneurial online, even more responsibility is on each of us to find our own audience. And when we’ve found them, the onus is on us to work consistently to keep them engaged until the time comes when they’re ready to acquire our work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marylittle.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylittlestudio/
- Other: For my news and insights you can sign up with your full name here: [email protected]. And if you’re based in L.A. and want to hear of local events I’m participating in, let me know, to receive invitations.
Image Credits
Mary Little Studio